Good Childhood or Bad Childhood?

weinermcgee

Ah I pressed tab this time instead of enter!

I am allowed one more topic today so I thought I'd make it interesting.

I'd have to say that I had an awesome JW childhood I had lots of kids to play with, my cong always held special things to make all the children happy such as renting space to have parties or watching disney movies at someones house, movie theatre parties. sliding parties (you know sleds on hills, no gt sno racers back then), all kinds of things that prevented us from getting worldly friends. It may not have been right and trouble started in our teens when kids wanted to join school sports teams and date, but up to 13ish it was great.

I think i was in a special cong when i was growing up or maybe i was naive, but i enjoyed it and after living in numerous congregations later and seen how cold people were to each other, i think there was a time in my first cong when most everyone was genuine they wern't part of a religion they really treated it like a family. when I look back at my parents old photographs its seems like people were so happy and having fun and not fake about it. That image is what made me stay in it so long, i wanted my family to be like that. But i believe now it was a one in a million thing, the "society" has squashed anything special that cong may or may not have had.

So like i said i enjoyed my childhood, and i enjoy having high morals which i still don't know if i got from the brainwashing or my parents or just cause I'm a good guy.

Ellie

I'm glad you had a good childhood, thats great.

Mine wasn't good but it could've been a lot worse, I got a lot of beatings and I wasn't allowed to associate with worldly kids much and as my mum was forever falling out with the brothers and sistes I wasn't always allowed to play with kids from the cong, fortunately though I have a brother only a year younger than me so we had fun together.

In a way though I'm glad that it was like that, I have my own kids now and I am happy to use my mother's example and do the complete opposite of what she did.

Nosferatu

My childhood sucked. There were no JWs in my congregation that I could relate to. Over the years, "friends" were literally thrown at me. "You should spend more time with (insert JW youth here). I was one of those kids that were very independent, so finding someone to relate to me was difficult. The JW circle of friends is so small compared to the circle of friends I could have at school.

When I was in my teen years, my mother encouraged me to take the initiative to make friends, which I did. I would rent some movies, buy some snacks (with my own money), and invite all the JW youth from the congregation. They ate the snacks, drank the pop, and enjoyed the movies. However, many times the other JW youth would get together to do something and I was left out. I'd confront them and ask, "Why didn't you invite me?" They'd respond with "Oh, sorry, we'll invite you next time." Next time never came.

I found myself getting along with others at school much easier. But try making plans with worldly schoolmates outside of school. I'd get hell from my mother about bad association. In my opinion, bad association was better than no association.

After a while, depression started to set in. I'd attend congregation activities and find myself bored out of my skull. I'd sit there while all the other JWs my age were having fun. I felt so left out. Eventually, I began to despise large gatherings. I still have problems with that to this day.

I eventually quit going to any gatherings. My mother found a new "friend" for me to study with. I was a depressed 18 year old who wanted to get the hell out of that religion. It was all still being forced upon me. I thought that when I turned 18, I was legally able to make my own decisions. It didn't work out that way.

So, I rebelled against the guy I studied with. I hated him with a passion. He would force me to sit with him at the meeting by moving my books, he'd pick me up for meetings (although I left him sitting at the house a few times by driving myself), and he'd get the WT study conductor to look for my hand when a particular question was asked. I felt so humiliated.

I could touch on the other crap of my childhood such as the physical abuse, but I figured I'd touch on the social aspect this time.

defd

So like i said i enjoyed my childhood, and i enjoy having high morals which i still don't know if i got from the brainwashing or my parents or just cause I'm a good guy.

I am going to live up to my rep here. but you call what you said below having HIGH MORALS and being a good guy?

I dream of the day when JW come knocking at my door, I want them to start a bible study with me! carry the charade on for months get a CO's to visit me and DO's to visit me see how long I can keep it goin! Then one day jump up and say: HA HA you idiots I'm F-ing disfellowshipped get the F out of my house.

They don't call me evil for nothing!

Finally-Free

I wasn't a JW but my childhood sucked anyway. When I was a teenager I destroyed most of my childhood photos. A few still exist that my family didn't let me get my hands on, but there are no pics anywhere of me between the ages of 7-22.

W

candidlynuts

i had a wonderful childhood, great parents, big family , every sunday after the meetings we went to grandmas for sunday chicken dinner, parents were never abusive, discipline consisted of extra chores or a lecture. we were poor but happy.saturday nights usually were visiting nights, we'd go somewhere and visit, dad would play music , kids would play, moms would gossip.. i credit the good childhood with good parents not because we were jw's.missing holidays didnt bother me, the only jw thing that bugged me was going out in service every saturday instead of watching cartoons! i had a younger bro 13 mos younger than me so i had a built in buddy!

teen years were harder one reason was because the society sent in elders to " serve where the need was greater" and they shut down saturday visiting because it was wrong for some reason.. and also because i was left out of any jw social activity because we were poor and were not good enough to be " in" with the cliques, but again, good parents, we always had something going on that kept me from being bored. fishing, gathering nuts in the woods, gardening, had about 120 acres of grandpas land to explore anytime i wanted to, i was allowed to read anything i wanted. and i had a bike i rode 6 miles or more a day till i was 17 and we moved.

just fine

My childhood was good. I was raised as a witness, but my family had fun together. After thursday meetings was ice cream night, Fridays we would go to one of the elders houses for movies or swimming. Saturdays were service, lunch with some of the friends and in the summer going to the lake or in the winter sledding or snowmobiling. Sundays were rollerskating. No spankings. Once I was old enough to drive the people from the cong would get together on Fri or Sat to go bowling. We always took family vacations together, sometimes just our family - soemtimes with others families from the hall. Sometimes we would go to the lake for the weekend with other elders in the hall and have the watchtower study in the campground. There were always parties as tenns - formals, fifties, etc. I guess I didn't realize how the rest were until I moved out of my general area - then I got a dose of reality from the elders wives in my new hall. Not so much fun anymore.

Undecided

I had a great childhood, my parents were loving as well as my family. All my dad's family were JWs and none of my mothers family were except her. Both families were good to me and I enjoyed them both. I was allowed to have worldly friends and my best friend was a guy who lived next to us in the country. He still lives there and he still is a good friend. Things were different back in the 40s and early 50s in the congregation. I didn't like street work or house to house but I had a lot of fun with the other kids in the congregation. I played on the school basketball team and went to school functions when I wanted too. I even dated worldly girls when I was 16, 17, and 18. Didn't have sex though, it wasn't as common as it is today.

Ken P.

caligirl

My home life was great- my parents did a great job with all of us, (even though they think that they failed because we all left their choice of religious structure.) The greatest thing that they did was pass on the ability to think for ourselves, even if it wasn't intentional!

The bad part of my childhood revolved around anything to do with witnesses. Having to be different was very painful- made all the more so as I realized through my early teens that it was all a crock and all of that emotional turmoil had been pointless. But I also know that my parents had terrible childhoods and that for some reason, they thought they needed this kind of structure to make their children's lives better, so I hold no bad feelings towards them for it.

weinermcgee

I dream of the day when JW come knocking at my door, I want them to start a bible study with me! carry the charade on for months get a CO's to visit me and DO's to visit me see how long I can keep it goin! Then one day jump up and say: HA HA you idiots I'm F-ing disfellowshipped get the F out of my house.

They don't call me evil for nothing! This is what most people would consider a joke or at least a funny exageration, but its ok, I understand from your posts that you are still an active JW so a sense of humour is probably out of your reach.

Good Childhood or Bad Childhood?

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